It finally came today, against an Irish team that was showing off its bench strength by not including a single county cricketer. Doram, who stands at an incredible six feet, seven inches despite his tender years, claimed his maiden five-wicket-haul at the first time of asking. He hails from Saint Maarten, and such is the island's insignificance in the region that the Leeward Islands team weren't even scouting the island to find him. Ron Elferlink, the former Dutch player, was there, though, and he was massively impressed. Doram was fast-tracked into every age-group team from Under-15s to Under-19s for the Dutch, at one point playing fifteen rep games in just over three weeks.
The gangling left-arm spinner has been described as a once in a generation talent.
But his age and lineage open up another two of cricket's cans of worms. Firstly, his West Indian background means that should he ever want to play Test cricket, that's where he will have to go back to. Indeed, it is fairly likely that the Leeward Islands will soon come looking for him now that he has showcased his abilities. From there, should he impress, the West Indies would be next in line. It would be yet another tale of an Associate having one of their star talents poached. And why not?
Would you want to be the one to tell the then seventeen-year-old Doram that the 2015 World Cup will be the last he will be able to play for his country? With only ten teams set to be included from then onwards, where is the incentive for young talents like Doram and Braat for the Netherlands or Nitish Kumar from Canada, to name but a few of the talents who are unlikely to play in a World Cup match when they are in anything other than the very formative stages of their careers?
Is the ICC arrogant and self-absorbed enough to shut out the talents like Doram from over 90% of its members? It is wrong to force them to switch allegiances should they ever wish to achieve any sort of international honour or recognition. It is wrong to make cricket such a closed shop. But I've said all of that before; there's no point in repeating myself.